A week ago Saturday brought the opening of the Winter Group Show at Shooting Gallery. I got there very early, so a crowd was yet to form, but I hope some visitors braved the cold after a few drinks later in the evening. The artists showing are those that have helped with the continued development of the Shooting Gallery, including John Felix Arnold III, Ferris Plock, and APEX, all of whom have shown work recently in the Tenderloin. The intermingling of two-dimensional and sculptural works emphasized the variety of artists who show at the Shooting Gallery, which is a great way to finish their last show in this space. I can’t wait to see what they do with the larger space they are moving into very soon, continuing to foster creativity, but hopefully with much more room to do so.

I am totally over artwork depicting guns. It has been played out as a way to shock viewers and draw inaudiences, and recently, it seems like we just can't escape. Much to my chagrin, D Young V's newestshow at White Walls here in San Francisco is different. There are guns everywhere, but they aren't ploys for attention. Instead, The New Race employs the weapons as commonplace tools necessary for survival in the post-apocalyptic world D Young V has created in the gallery. The entire space is covered in works of ink on paper, reading as militaristic propaganda, complete with ammo and helmets to protect yourself. Arrowsextend from the bottom of several works ending at a pair of footprints, directing the viewer's distance from the piece, suggesting more intimate or more encompassing perceptions of the images.

More importantly, the show starts in the street, tying the space of the gallery to that of the Tenderloinon Larkin Street. Because of this introduction, it is easy to read the work within the gallery as what San Francisco might look like 300 years after civilization has ended. The script extending across the gallery and the pieces themselves intermingle English characters with numbers and symbols, an allusion to the disintegration of language through time. Will we really be speaking English in 300 years? Are we even really speaking English now?

With recent violent events including school shootings, this dystopian future may not be that far off. We may need to arm ourselves and embrace community over individualism, much like D Young V has done within his work. Instead of using the guns as symbols of power, he has introduced them as necessary tools for survival for the entire new race. Through incredibly detailed work, this show emphasizes the need to protect ya neck.

Last week, for a one-night-only event, Juxtapoz and the Chandran Gallery here in San Francisco hosted Iron to Gold/Ashes to Hope, a fundraising auction to benefit an artist residency program in Detriot started by exhibiting artists Monica Canilao and Harrison Bartlett. The storefront was taken over by the Singapore/San Francisco based gallery where it was transformed to encapsulate the detritus and community fostered by the residency's home in the city of Detroit. The pieces were even numbered simply with chalk, a perfect way to integrate the works with the space itself. An ordinary print auction was taken to a whole new level in this inclusive environment, which included a chandelier encircled by swings, an American flag tent, and house DJ. Although the event only occurred for this one evening, proceeds will be directed to the residency program, which will ensure the creative futures of artists and therefore more events like this to come.

Thursday night brought a packed crowd to Spoke Art where the gallery hosted the second annual Supersonic Electronic Invitational. For this show, 32 young artists were chosen by supersonicelectronic.com founder Zach Tutor, who sees them as the leaders of a new generation of artists. The space was packed with high-quality work, almost strictly limited to painting, and a small room in the back sold prints and gave drinks away to those who dared to enter the swarm. The space was so crammed that there was a line to get in, and the work seemed to be selling quickly and early, so the show seemed to be a great success in exposing these young artists to new audiences. It will definitely be worth a second look, where I may get the space to view each piece as it deserves.

Rachel Ralph headed down to the Tenderloin just before Christmas to check out the Donate Your Skate benefit show at The Book & Job Gallery here in San Francisco. This one night show/ benefit was thrown to collect donated skateboard equipment from the city's skate scene to help Bay Area kids in need for the Holidays.

Last Friday, the day the world was meant to end, Henry Gunderson opened his short run show (through Jan 5th) Apocalypse Shelter at Ever Gold complete with space suits and apocalyptic videos and solar heated sleeping/ yoga mats.

Funniest home videos laugh tracks over videos of the LA riots. People dragged from cars beaten to laughs like the classic "man hit in nuts" audio laugh track Bob Saget style. Colored pencil works with walls covered in aluminum foil for the journey to the afterlife.

It's not often that you can see new works from so prominent artists side by side in my hometown, but that is exactly the scenario we have right now in Copenhagen at the V1 Gallery as they celebrate their 10 year anniversary with a huge group show called "Tonight We Won’t Be Bored – 10 Years of V1 Gallery". The list of the participating artists in the current show includes legendary names like Kenny Scharf, Futura, Faile, Barry McGee, Barbara Kruger, Shepard Fairey, Steve Powers, Todd James, Andrew Schoultz, Thomas Campbell, Erik Parker, Neckface and two of my favorite local artists, Søren Solkær Starbird and Troels Carlsen. The list just goes on and on… and in total there's more than 100 new works on display!

In my personal opinion, V1 Gallery is the best thing that has happened to the scene for young contemporary art in Copenhagen over the past 10 years. V1 has brought exactly the kind of contemporary art that I'm passionated about to Copenhagen from a very impressive international pool of artists. I look very much forward to the various exhibitions with equal parts of excitement and great expectations - and I have never been disappointed. Over the past few years I have also had the great pleasure to photograph selected exhibitions for a variety of international art magazines and websites - which, like myself, are very interested in following the V1 Gallery and cover the many great shows. Congratulations on your 10 year anniversary, it has been a true triumph! -Henrik Haven

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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